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Show HURRICANE OF FLAMES : SWEEP OVER PRAIRIES One Thousand Homeless, Several Dead and $200,000 Damage Done in Oklahoma. arose from dwellings, barns and outhouses, out-houses, but wherever a blase grew men were present to quench It with water. As a result of the cool judgment of the fighters, the city's loss was only $10,000. Stories are coming in of how families laid out on the barren prairie through the freezing night, after the storm had passed with only the thin clothes on their backs as reminders of once prosperous homes. Hundreds of people are destitute and are suffering Intensely In the cold and with the excruciating ex-cruciating pains occasioned by their burns. Clothes, medicine and physicians physi-cians are being sent out from all the cities and towns of the district to relieve re-lieve the offering. The fire started near the Wichita mountains in the military reserve, and during the afternoon had gained such headway that when It crossed Into the settled country It could not be checked. At 10 o'clock the wind suddenly shifted and a fearful gale swept down from the north, with the velocity of a hurricane., hurri-cane., In a few minutes the country for miles was in an atmosphere of stifling smoke and blinding send as the flames, mad with the fury of the wind, swept down upon the settled) country and towns to the south. Homes were hurriedly hur-riedly abandoned by settlers and stock turned loose while all sought safety in flight Some, unable to escape, were burned to death, but how many will not be known until the burned district is ex-1 ex-1 plored by relief parties, which have been sent out from this city, Hobart, Fort 8111 and Anadarko. LA. WTO N. , Okla.. March 4. Prairie fires that swept over targe portions of Kiowa and Comanche counties destroyed de-stroyed hundreds of farm buildings and much live stock; made 1900 persons homeless; caused the death of several persons; threatened a number of towns and swept away scores of buildings In the outskirts of the towns. Two deaths are verified.' They are Dr. J. Harmon, six miles from Law- I ton; body found, and an unknown boy, body found on prairie near Lawton; burned beyond Identification. I John Harmon and a daughter of Mrs. I Henderson, living near Lawton. were fatally burned. Mrs. Henderson and another daughter were severely burned. The country was very dry, no rain having fallen for months. Grass and stubble fires, set by farmers, as is customary cus-tomary at this season of the year, were driven beyond control by a violent gale which rose suddenly. All estimates of the loss exceed 1200,000. At Hobart, the county seat of Kiowa county, the fire destroyed numerous outlying buildings. The 76,000 acres of Government military and timber and Indian reserve near Hobart were swept, with loss of buildings and cattle. In the homestead district near Law-ton Law-ton occurred the loss of Ufa noted above. ' Late at night the fire began moving southward toward .this city. At 12 o'clock midnight 5000 people were up to battle with the flames. The advance line of the fire was fully two miles In length and moved in a semi-circular form. Two thousand men turned their , efforts ef-forts to cheeking the grass borders of the reservation at the city limits. Water Wa-ter from every source, carried In every conceivable way, was distributed along this line and carried all around the city limits. This served the purpose of checking the advance lines of the fire, but was of little avail in hindering the continued rolling of the fire brand Into the streets of the city. In more than a hundred places flames |